America's 10 Best Indie Record Labels, Past and Present

Over the weekend the music editors at The Guardian published a list of their favorite UK indie labels. Their great selection includes Rough Trade, Creation, Mute, and many more. Never averse to borrowing an idea we like, we thought we’d do the same for our favorite US-based indies. Of course, given the robust health of the US indie scene -– and the fact that, like The Guardian, we decided to constrain ourselves to 10 selections -– meant that we had leave a fair few out. So go on, tell us in the comments section who we’ve missed. Just try not to get too emotional about it, eh?

If you hadn’t noticed, we’re quite partial to drone-y psychedelic music here at Flavorpill, and LA-based Not Not Fun is probably the foremost purveyor of such sounds out there at the moment. The label has put out a slew of fantastic releases over the last few years, so much so that the volume of material is overwhelming -– but if you’re interested, one of our favorite music websites, 14tracks.com, recently did a Not Not Fun retrospective, which is a good place to start. (For similar sounds, we’re also extremely partial to the output of Philly label Siltbreeze.)